


Maybe, maybe

by sushi_san



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Dark, Gore, Graphic Description, Manipulation, Murder, Self-Harm, Self-Hatred
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-12-11 14:12:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11716023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sushi_san/pseuds/sushi_san
Summary: Keith reflects on how the team copes with the amount of death they deal with on the missions, but he isn't sure why they're so bothered.





	Maybe, maybe

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place during no specific time. Pidge uses female pronouns.

They've all killed before. The warships they decimate? The wide shots on some civilian planet? Casualties. Pidge had brought it up once after a mission, all of them exhausted out of their minds and barely awake on their feet. It had just never been addressed.

After Allura had answered with a scathing, "Zarkon killed my entire race. I feel no qualms returning the favor," it would never be brought up again.

Of course, it wasn't that easy. Murder never is.

So Pidge copes. She tells herself it's self defense when she plunges her bayard into a neck and stops herself from wondering if it's cables or _bone_ that it's lodged in. She's developed a habit of squeezing her eyes shut before the kill, swallowing that pain to deal with later in the middle of the night, in the hangar where Green's cockpit can deafen the sound of her screaming until she can't breathe.

Hunk simply tries not to think about it. Tries not to think about what happens after the plasma leaves his gun, about what it does to raw flesh, how it vaporizes bone and viscera alike. It doesn't stop the night terrors, or the rash that comes when he scrubs his skin in the shower so vigorously that he bleeds.

It doesn't bother Shiro as much as it probably should. He's an expert in close-quarters combat (no one can even come close to beating him in the sims), can spend an entire fight bouncing on his toes, not throwing a single punch and still end out on top. Evidently, after being forced to kill so many innocents, the shock becomes numb. At least on the outside. He's found a new way to cope. One that doesn't leave him so numb. At least until he heals.

Aside from Shiro, Lance hides it the best. Hides the horrible flinch when the headshot breaks armor, watching the aftermath through the scope or down sight. He hides how much it breaks him; watching _his_ bullets tear through muscle like it's _paper,_ feeling _his_ finger on the trigger signing that death sentence. He hides how hard it is to keep himself from signing his own when it's all said and done.

So maybe there's something wrong with Keith. Maybe he's broken _—_ not emotionally, but mentally. When that sword's in his hand, he isn't thinking about the pain it must be causing, the life it's no doubt ending (Keith doesn't miss). He's thinking about how the next one is coming from the left with an uneven gait that leaves him open from below, how the one lunging at Lance's neck leaves their self almost _comically_ vulnerable. He's thinking how that soldier two paces behind Pidge can stand there so cluelessly, giving him somewhere to throw his sword like a knife, and how _easy_ they're making it for him.

He cares, of course. Those soldiers have children, have friends (that was someone's son you just sent home in a Ziplock, Keith). He knows that part of him dies with every lunge that should've been a parry, he knows that eventually he'll be so broken that there'll be nothing to piece together. He also knows that to survive in a broken world, you have to be just as desperate as the enemy. That to survive, you need to want it more than the other guy.

He's been forgetting that lately. The hesitation almost cost him his arm _—_ his team _—_ but the look on the little girl's face when Haggar's illusion wore off. The face, the body, the voice that had been the spitting image of Zarkon.

They had trouble getting him back on the castle. He remembers clocking Pidge in the jaw (the sound of her cry), kicking Hunk so hard he started vomiting (the words that caught in his throat), and giving Shiro's strength a run for his money. Lance has been glassy-eyed since the whole thing, since trying to put the two pieces of the girl back together (a two piece puzzle and the dumbass still can't solve it, _tch!)._

So he lies on his bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering where it all went wrong.

It was the right thing to do. Right? The witch's games are just as much the enemy as the woman herself. _"Right."_

The door to his room opens a crack and a toothy purple face peers in. "Wakey wakey."

He moves like lightning, slamming his fist on the wall as he stands. "Lance! Galra on the ship!" The other hand slips underneath his pillow, fist closing around the hilt of the knife.

The alien grins, lips drawing back, pulling the door open, muscles bulging. "Baby Blue can't help you, child. Only God can do that."

His bayard rests by the door on top of his armor. He can reach it. He doesn't have a choice.

He lets the knife fly with explosive force. The Galra tries to dodge but it's too big for the hallways of the castle. The blade catches so deeply in his shoulder that it pins him against the opposite wall, lodged into the metal. The monster cries out, its face contorting. The howl it lets out is pitiful and mocking all at once. Keith surges forward in three strides.

First.

He's cleared the room, bayard back in hand, feeling Red's rage all the way from the hangar across the ship. The piece of shit will pay for even daring to attack his friends, his family.

Second.

The bayard won't transform, won't extend into the balanced blade he's so familiar with. Too much going on to question it. He readjusts his grip. _His_ family.

Third.

The Galran blocks the first blow, raising his injured arm with surprising force. Keith lets the weapon fall into his other hand with a discreet gesture and by the time the alien has caught on, the corner of it is smashing into his temple.

It leaves the intruder dazed, a smile on toothy lips and his arm rears back again. Again. Again. Again.

He wishes he could say that there's anger in his mind while he swings repeatedly. Maybe there is, somewhere deep down. But right now, the instinct screams protect. At all costs. Mourning that cost can come later when they're all safe. Safe and alive.

Something pulls him back and there's a sharp bark ready on his tongue to tell Shiro to wake up the others, to stop lingering around his room waiting for something to happen like he doesn't trust Keith. There are hostiles on the castle. We have to find Allura. The bayard pulses in his hand, Red's outrage cuts off, leaving him disconnected and confused. The weapon sears his palm until he lets go, hardly registering the pain in his mind.

There's a ringing in his ears, so sharp and sudden that he winces against Shiro's hold, against his voice to pull himself inward. But the keening doesn't stop once the pain fades away. The keening won't stop for a long time.

Hunk comes into focus first, at the end of the hallway clad in nothing but sweats and a tee, tears streaming down his face, mouth open in the most terrible soundless scream.

It's Shiro's voice that filters through the noise. He's still too frazzled to make out the words and he squints, wincing again when one of the two pairs of hands bracing him squeezes far too hard. His yelp of pain goes ignored, fingers digging in, drawing blood. He tries to make out who's holding him so tightly when another familiar cry sliced through the haze.

And _—_ _no._

He thrashes. "No! No! _No!"_ He screams until his voice is ripped from his throat, kicking against Shiro's concrete grasp, away from Coran's iron grip.

_I don't have to touch them. You'll do it for me._

Foam bubbles at Lance's lips, dripping down his chin to mix with the blood and cerebrospinal fluid running rivers down his face. The right side of his skull is abnormal, caved in enough to to make something behind his eyelid swell, enough to mat his hair with something that isn't completely blood.

So that's where the keening is coming from: Pidge. Her glasses fall in the gory mess at her knees but she doesn't seem to notice. No wait, she isn't screaming. She's not the keening. Instead, he can see her mouth forming words of nonsense, sobbing, hands covered in red, fisting in her hair as she panics. Her eyes, so young, widen with shock, confusion, hate, everything. _Why?_

Allura grabs the pilot by the shoulders, pulling her into her body with eyes just as wide. She's repeating one word, over and over and over. _Haggar, Haggar, Haggar._ Pidge sobs so hard that it looks like she might rip apart.

I don't understand.

_Yes, you do._

Hunk starts screaming at him and lunges forward. The only thing that stops him is Shiro, shoving him back, keeping his cool. But not really. With how close he and Coran are holding him, he can feel every quake in the Black pilot's body, every bit of shivering rage and shock.

"He was a Galra," Keith stammers. Pidge screams again, horror hardly dampened by Allura's shoulder. "I was protecting us!"

_Your morals make you a true weapon, boy. Tell me, do you bleed?_

What have you done?

A laugh. _Your father will be proud. Then again, Lotor was always easy to please._

_No._

"Lance! Wake up! Please move! Please!"

"C'mon, buddy. Not like this. Please! Please..."

"Move! Princess, he needs a healing pod!"

"It won't work!"

_"It has to!"_

Coran must decide that he isn't worth holding back because he drops Keith where he stands to kneel beside Shiro over Lance's convulsing body.

"What have I done?"

Haggar just laughs. When she's gone she doesn't take the keening noise with her and Keith finally realizes what it is.

It's Blue. Down in the hangar with the other lions. With Green, and Yellow, and Black. Down with Red who tried to stop him.

It's Blue, crying for her paladin.

So maybe there's something wrong with Keith. Maybe there isn't. After all:

they've all killed before.

**Author's Note:**

> Heh. Oh yeah, major character death. Oops.


End file.
